


No sin so pure

by BranwellBronte



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Job, Fuck him through his clothes, Hand Job, Hitting, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Marriage, Religious Themes, Self-Acceptance, Slapping, Vomiting, long talks, notions of god, unintentional self-harm, unlikely romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:57:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BranwellBronte/pseuds/BranwellBronte
Summary: Mourning a lost unrequited love and trying to cope with religious-influenced internalized homophobia, John Irving finds an unlikely kindred spirit in James Fitzjames, with whom he has fervent spiritual dialogues and, of course, eventual, freeing sex...





	No sin so pure

            Irving wants to fall on his knees, but he doesn’t. That would be too dramatic, too showy, too Papist.

            Most importantly, Sir John would disapprove of it all the way down from Heaven, to which he’s so newly ascended. It would be a crime worthy of all God’s vengeance to dismay Sir John not only in this life, but the next.

            Last night, Irving had a dream. In it, he was brushing the snow from his uniform as he’d entered his cabin. All the flakes that had fallen on his body during the funeral dissolved before they hit the ground because Sir John, sitting on Irving’s bed, was alive. In that special dreaming way in which one simply _knows_ things, Irving knew that the snowflakes had never actually existed because there had never been a funeral. Sir John had never died.

            “I’m here,” Sir John had imparted to him without opening his mouth, holding his hand out, palm upward, to Irving. In shifting pictures blurry one moment and then vivid the next, Irving had laid his hand in Sir John’s, was beckoned to sit on the bed, had been turned to face Sir John by Sir John himself, and then been wrapped in Sir John’s arms.

            Then Irving and Sir John had done a few certain things.

            This evening, a day after the funeral, Irving remembers these things.

He collapses against the wall of the empty corridor in mid-step.

He swore he wouldn’t sink to his knees, but John Irving has sworn many things many times in his life, and he’s kept his promises with God less and less over the years. _I won’t look at him, God_ , as he passed the most handsome student at the Naval Academy. The moment before last second. _I won’t look_. The last second, then the turn of his head, the view of the young man’s profile as they step past each other. At the next mass: _God, forgive me. I was weak. I am stronger than this vice, I promise._

Another day, another boy, another look. And then Sir John, and Irving has been in a dark wood ever since, despite the Glory of God that had enfolded Sir John Franklin.

As he sinks and barely registers the pain in his arm where he bumped against the wall, Irving remembers how he felt the first time he saw Sir John. Lady Jane had found him in a knot of other lieutenants in the theatre lobby and physically dragged him by the same arm that vaguely hurts now. “Come with me, now. My husband, he’s heard about you from your friend. Lieutenant Hodgson, he’s a fine fellow, he sang all your good graces, and of course he did! Look at how popular you are with our other brave Marines. Husband, this is Lieutenant John Irving, I’ve found him for you.”

Sir John hadn’t even turned to face Irving yet before Irving had felt the weight of love, heavy as a building, collapse on his heart, timbers fracturing into the soft muscle, bricks raining down into the chambers, the _boom_ faster than his weak heartbeat, _boom, boom_ , every part of his body felt crashed into by something enormous and unmovable. As soon as Sir John had finally turned to face him, Irving had known the dust from this beautiful downpour of devotion would never settle.

Was it actually beautiful? He’d nearly knocked his clasped hands against his forehead every time he prayed. One time he actually did hit himself with them and the thought, _He’s like a father to me, like a father, like a father_ was the illumination he needed. His father had died when he was a child. He wanted a father. He _needed_ a father. The breaking-up of his heart had been the realization that he’d finally found the man to whom he could turn. And it was alright if that realization had hurt and felt like true love. It was a Mystery. It didn’t need to be solved. Only embraced.

But when he and Sir John had embraced in his dream…

Irving jerks out of his thoughts as one hand, and then two, are heavy on his shoulders. “Lieutenant, stand up, I’ve got you, you can stand, put your hand on my arm.”

Irving shudders away from the touch, some notion of _Never let a man touch you_ surfacing even in his distraction.

“Lieutenant Irving. Stand _up._ Lean on me if you need to. Lieutenant, _stand_ _up_.”

Irving, even through the muddy water of his boggy mind, knows that he needs to obey this voice. He flails a hand about and it lands on James Fitzjames’s forearm. Fitzjames uses Irving’s grip as leverage to haul Irving to his feet. Irving nearly slumps against the wall again but Fitzjames grabs him by both forearms and shakes him firmly. “Lieutenant. I’ve been calling your name for half a minute, can’t you _hear_ me?”

Irving flinches and hisses as Fitzjames’s hand slides to the spot on his upper arm that hit the wall. “I’m…alright, alright, I’m alright,” he breathes more than speaks as Fitzjames moves his hands to Irving’s shoulders. “I’m alright.” Irving doesn’t know where his feet are and he nearly catches one foot on top of the other as he tries to back away from Fitzjames. _Don’t touch me don’t touch me you’re a man so don’t touch me_ is beginning to shrill through his mind like a handbell ringing too fast.

“You’re not alright. Lieutenant Irving, look at me. If you can’t look at me, I’ll have to take you to the infirmary to have your head checked.” Fitzjames reaches for Irving again and Irving, slowly emerging from the morass, sees the man’s hand coming at him and manages to stand up straight. _No touching._

“I’m alright, sir. I’m sorry.” He’s breathing fast, like he’s run through the park like he used to do as a child. “I only. I felt awful for a moment. Just awful. The grief…” And he can’t finish as another shaft of his broken heart cracks apart and lands in the dust that rises and rises.

“Yes, I know.” Fitzjames drops his hand and his eyes have a dull, exhausted cast to them, now that Irving can look at them. “You don’t need to put it into words, Lieutenant. You only need to walk without falling right now. Are you capable of that or should I have Dr. Peddie see to you? How badly did you knock yourself about?”

“Not badly, sir. I’m sure I can walk now.” Irving moves away from the wall. “I’ll have a bruise, but…it’ll add a little color to the landscape.” He tries for a chuckle and it dies an instant death when Fitzjames immediately narrows his eyes. Irving cringes, mentally slapping himself, but Fitzjames’s eyes close. He opens them and Irving sees only the tiredness and sorrow there.

“We are all unwell. That is not quite the right word for our…devastation. For this loss. I’ll let you go now if you promise you’re all right. If you fall again, I _will_ have to send you to the infirmary, though.”

“Sir. I promise.”

“I’m back to _Erebus,_ now. I’ll see you another time, Lieutenant.”

“Sir. Another time.”

Fitzjames holds his eyes as he nods and then moves past Irving, the soft breeze of air that follows in his wake making Irving shiver slightly. He waits until he hears Fitzjames turn the corner at the end of the corridor and then he places one hand on the wall again, fingers trailing on it as he winds through the ship to his berth. Thanks be to God that he doesn’t run into anyone as he slips into the cabin, locks it, and collapses onto the bed.

_God, Holy God, I thank You for keeping me alive another day, for lifting me back onto my feet. Tonight I pray only that You keep Sir John in Your grip now and forevermore. Amen._

As he pulls his blankets snug, he amends, _And God, please help me continue to think of Sir John as my mortal father. As You are my own Father in Heaven, so Sir John was my father on earth._

_He was my father._

Sleep snares him and the dreams begin.

***

            In the morning, Irving moves in silence as Hodgson and Little make small talk while they walk together after breakfast. Everyone is lost and forlorn, so his lack of conversation is forgiven, he knows.

            Even if the horror hadn’t happened, Irving knows that Hodgson and Little would still forgive him his silence. They’re all good friends. Good friends are understanding and loyal to other good friends in their times of trouble. That’s a code that good men live by.

            Small talk right now consists of trying to discern exactly why Cornelius Hickey is so irritating.

“He looks like he crawled out of a gutter with that rat face.”

“That’s what it is. He looks like a rat but he walks too proud. Too proud for a boy that sleeps in a hammock.”

“John? What do you think it is, then? You’ve talked to him, right?”

Irving watches Hickey ascend a ladder with his caulker’s equipment. “I had to. He was being rude.”

“Really? What did he do?”

_He’s a snake. He lies on the ground in filth._

“He laughed at me when I suggested he try to better himself.” He doesn’t need to hide his curling lip in front of his friends as he grinds his teeth.

Hodgson tilts his chin up at Hickey as he disappears through the hatch and onto the upper deck. “Rude to an officer. He doesn’t know shame and it will bite him someday.”

“Did you write him up, then? The nerve of the lowly kind.” Little makes a disgusted sound in his throat. “You had every right to write him up.”

“No, but I gave him a warning. I was merciful.” Irving turns back and looks at the hatch. “Just this once, though.”

            _Cornelius Hickey is blighted fruit_. _I would never stain myself the way he and that Gibson boy did. I would never, Father. Those boys weren’t raised correctly. I doubt they had a chance or they’d be sitting here with us now. Thank you, God, for ensuring they’ll never be among us._

Cornelius Hickey _must_ be a branch bent the wrong way, because he won’t stop jutting into Irving’s mind throughout the rest of the day. Irving snaps him off again and again.

            _His vices aren’t any of mine._

 _Because the dreams are not who I am. They are not what I_ do, _unlike_ him.

_I promise, Father._

***

            The boy William Gibson fiddles with his fingers in his lap before he raises his eyes to meet Irving’s. “He’s stopped. He hasn’t approached me again. For anything.”

            Irving forks food into his mouth from the tray Gibson set down for him in his cabin. “Not even when he passes you in the hall?”

            “No.” Gibson pauses, touches his upper row of teeth with his tongue as if to start a new sentence, but closes his mouth and shakes his head. “No. Not even then.”

            Irving drinks and squints at the boy. Gibson does his job well, but it’s not much of a job, so it can’t be too taxing. He’s really just lucky to be here at all. Still, he’s better than the rat Hickey. He spoke up when a lesser man shamed him. It’s the least of what Irving would expect from a superior man than Hickey, even if Gibson is still hardly more than chaff compared to Irving.

            “You’re keeping your promise not to engage with him in any manner.” It’s not a question.

            “Yes, sir.” Gibson’s hands are still compulsively running over each other, fingers sliding down the back of one and then squeezing each other. His shoulders have slumped from their ramrod straightness. There’s melancholy in his eyes. It looks like piled drifts of snow that he’s too tired to shovel away, even in front of Irving. He looks like he’s come from a funeral, but the death was some part of himself.

            As his shoulders sag further, Irving, in his mind, hits the wall with his arm and slides down to the floor with the memory of his loss.

            _Stupid._ There is no comparison between John Irving and William Gibson.

 Irving throws more than lays his fork down on his plate with a clatter, wincing inwardly at the noise. “Alright. You’ll come to me straight away if anything else happens.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re dismissed.”

“Sir.”

Gibson unfolds his gawky tallness from the chair and closes the door behind him quickly and firmly. Good. Irving was starting to feel queasy being in the company of a man who’s had congress with another man, even if involuntarily.

He looks down at his plate. It’s only half-eaten and it suddenly looks as appealing as the slop they serve the petty officers.

He knows Gibson was lying. The boy has seen Hickey since. Talked to him. Maybe resumed the awful vice with him. That’s why he looked like he’d rather be naked in a blizzard than be in Irving’s room.

Gibson, too, has something to hide.

Irving barely makes it to the towel on his dressing table before he’s ill.

***

            _The memory._

            Sir John shuffles Irving’s papers into a neat stack and smiles at him, eyes crinkling. “You are highly recommended by both your superiors and your peers, Lieutenant. If you sign these papers, you can begin packing your trunks immediately.”

            Irving hopes that his short breaths aren’t audible. It’s impossible to take long, deep breaths while looking at Sir John. The only way to look at him is to absorb his beauty.

“It’s the most wonderful honor of my life, sir. I want to be right behind you on deck as we sail through the Passage. Our moment of glory for England and God.”

Sir John looks even more pleased. “Excellent, Lieutenant. That’s the attitude I expect all our men to share. You’ll set an example for them.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right there with you.”

Sir John’s smile doesn’t falter, but he raises his eyebrows. “You certainly will be in spirit, Lieutenant. In body, though, you will be accompanying Captain Crozier on _Terror_. But you’ll see me plenty, fear not. We shall all have many a dinner together. Our rowboats are sturdy.”

Irving feels his blood slow and like his heart has been plunged into the cold water the rowboats will be skimming. _No. No. No._ Stones fill his stomach, heavy and jagged, points pressing into him. _This is not how it’s supposed to be. Terror? Crozier_ , _the_ Irishman? “Oh…I had…” His voice withers.

Sir John taps a pen against the desk and lays it next to the documents. “Captain Crozier will be fortunate to have you.” That beatific smile.

Irving signs the documents. Sir John shakes his hand and even in his grief, Irving thinks he could be struck down dead at this moment with love in his heart because Sir John has touched him.

***

 _The dream_.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right there with you.”

“Indeed you will.” Sir John passes a paper across the desk to Irving but it’s not a document to sign. It’s a map of the higher officers’ cabins in _Erebus_. Sir John takes the pen and gently lays it on one square.

“This will be my cabin.” He shifts the pen ever so slightly to the side, a barely noticeable movement. “And this will be yours.” His voice is low and husky. “I want you as close to me as possible. I’ve had an alteration made to the walls of our cabins. There will be a door that leads between them.”

Irving tilts his head back in pure joy and sinks out of his chair and down into a bed of lilies which has suddenly covered the floor. Sir John kneels next to him and places his fingertips on either side of Irving’s face.

“Glory,” Irving whispers. “Of God, but more importantly, Sir John, of _you_.”

***

            Irving wakes up suddenly and begins to bite his nails. They’re not long and he has to tear the small tops off with his teeth. Some of them don’t give way easily and he has to pull hard. Pain pulses in the exposed skin left bare. He feels for the mess of tiny half-moon broken pieces in his lap, then drops them on his pillow and lays his head back down. A sharp tip juts into his cheek but he doesn’t move. They’re the only thorns he has.

***

            He’s groggy when he wakes up, only does a cursory cleanup of himself, and then lands in the infirmary after Little and Hodgson notice all the dried blood streaking his fingers and the raw, red exposed skin where his nail tops should be. 

            Dr. Peddie gently bathes his fingers as Irving holds back tears of shame. “You don’t remember biting them off?”

            “I do remember, I mean, it’s a bad habit, usually I don’t do it unconsciously, I mean I remember doing it but it wasn’t painful, I was just worried.”

            “I understand.” Dr. Peddie applies cream to the small wounds and wraps cloth around several fingers that Irving did a particularly bad number on. “Try to stay conscious next time.”

            “I will.”

            Irving exits the infirmary and accidentally steps in front of James Fitzjames. Before Irving can hide his hands behind his back, Fitzjames sees them and looks up at Irving with a look mixed with confusion and frustration. “Lieutenant. This is the second day I’ve crossed paths with you and you’ve been unwell.”

            “Sir. It’s very minor, I promise.” Dread unfurls in Irving’s stomach.

            It’s as if Fitzjames senses it. “I’ve finished meeting with Captain Crozier for the day. I think we should spend a moment in your cabin.”

***

            “You need to tell me what’s wrong. Tell me exactly. This is more than melancholia. You’re sliding down walls and damaging your fingers. Lieutenant, I cannot, _cannot_ see you have another one of these incidents. It’s a mercy we were alone when you fell but now you’ll not be able to hide your hands. I need our lieutenants to set an example for all of the men, especially in this time of awful trial.”

            Irving doesn’t so much as nod but shake his chin weakly at Fitzjames, who sits in the chair across from him. He opens his mouth to form the word “grief,” but the sound never makes it past the back of his throat. He imagines all the things he could be doing right now: sleeping, eating, dressing, exchanging stories with Hodgson and Little, looking suspiciously at that boy Gibson, looking with disgust at that wretch Cornelius Hickey, being Lady Jane Franklin at home having tea and cross-stitching, swimming in ice water, heaving in lungfuls, sinking, smelling lilies at the bottom of the ocean, there is no blood, there is no body, no wine no bread no Sir John no no no no no no no-

            Except there _is_ blood, because he tastes a tiny patch on his tongue but it’s not his own blood and the taste is mingled with a large drop of liquid salt and Fitzjames is kneeling in front of him and hissing in Irving’s ear to _shut up, man, take hold of yourself, don’t make me do this, stop crying, shut up, shut_ UP-

            “NO NO NO-”

            Fitzjames clamps his hand harder around Irving’s mouth and grabs Irving behind the head with his other hand, pulling him forward. His eyes are boring iron into Irving, his nose is crinkled, his face almost distorted, and his voice is only half a step down from a snarl. “ _Irving,_ LISTEN to me _._ I don’t know what you’re yelling about, I don’t know what ‘ _no_ _no_ _no’_ is but you’re only one moment away from me having to drag you back to the infirmary to be treated for hysteria, and I don’t want that, and _you_ sure in hell don’t want that but if you scream one more time I’ll have no choice. I will have you _locked_ in there because you are dangerously, _dangerously_ close to seeming like an utterly broken man.”

            Irving’s lower face feels sweltering from his own breath being pushed back against his mouth by Fitzjames’s hand. He catches the faint hint of something metallic and realizes that the blood in his mouth is Fitzjames’s and the salt is from his own tears. He tries to latch the sensations to memories and when he pieces together _I started screaming and crying and Captain Fitzjames put his hand over my mouth and I accidentally bit him and now he’s telling me I might be a lunatic_ he reacts quite opposite to how he thought he would. Instead of screaming and crying again, his body stills and he lets the tension go from his neck. His limbs go soft, shoulders slumping as low as Gibson’s had, his knees falling to either side. There’s a strange pleasure in suddenly feeling weaker than he ever has in his life, now that he’s admitted the fact to himself.

            Blinking through the remaining tear-haze, he registers that Fitzjames hasn’t yet caught his breath. He looks at the man with mild alarm and almost laughs because there was nothing mild about Irving’s own behavior not twenty seconds ago. Fitzjames is still huffing tiny _hh, hhs_ and blinking two, three times in a row. Even more strangely, he’s still kneeling in front of Irving. Incredibly strangely, he hasn’t removed his fingers from the back of Irving’s head. They’re pushed into his hair at askew angles and are rigid, like branches that have grabbed Irving from behind, with the tiny bite of nails into the side of Irving’s scalp. Irving looks for Fitzjames’s other hand. It’s balled at his side and the forefinger has small indents between a line of blood where Irving bit him.

            Without thinking, Irving takes Fitzjames’s hand and smooths the blood away with his thumb. “God. Oh, my God. I’m so lost. I’m lost without him, I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to.” His voice is throaty but steady. He drops Fitzjames’s hand and pats into his breast pocket for a handkerchief. “Here sir, you can keep th-”

            Fitzjames threads his fingers harder into Irving’s hair and jerks Irving’s face down to his so that their foreheads touch. He cups his other palm around Irving’s cheek. “We have to stay close together,” he rasps. His skin is sheened with sweat and Irving feels it smearing his hairline as Fitzjames holds their faces together.

            When Irving blinks he feels his lashes brushing into Fitzjames’s own. “We…we do?”

            “Yes.” Fitzjames shakes Irving once and tendrils of his hair sway against Irving’s cheeks. “Do you not understand? When your love is gone, you either have solace from another or you have nothing.”

            Irving gasps, almost screams in joy. He’s not alone. He throws his arms around Fitzjames’s back. “You understand. Oh, you _understand_. I thought I could never tell.”

            “You have to tell me. We have to tell each other, all the time.” Fitzjames pulls his forehead away and presses his sweaty cheek to Irving’s tear-stained one. “I don’t know how I’ll manage if not for someone who understands.”

            Irving clenches Fitzjames’s back and rubs their cheeks together. When he speaks, it sounds like keening. “I loved him.”

            “You have to teach me how again.”

            “I..” Something in Fitzjames’s words disturbs Irving’s soaring joy and the deflation is sharp. “What do you mean?”

            Fitzjames seems to sense the effect he’s had and he pulls his head back. “I mean that you need to help me find him again, of course.”

            Irving fidgets, once. “But…find _Sir John_?”

            Fitzjames’s fingers weaken their hold in Irving’s hair. “Why would I find Sir John? What on earth do you mean?”

            “You said I wasn’t alone…” Irving feels tremors in his fingertips before the tremors in his heart begin.

            Fitzjames releases Irving slowly and kneels back on his heels. “You’re not alone in losing God.” It’s a statement, but only barely is it not a question. “Your love being gone, lost…I thought you meant God…not Sir-”

            Fitzjames never makes it to the word “John” before Irving is retching violently into Fitzjames’s lap and Fitzjames is shouting for Dr. Peddie and there are many, many footsteps and this is definitely, finally, Hell.

***

            “Well I feel fine Lieutenant Little, don’t you feel right in the bloom of health?”

            Little snorts and gestures to Hodgson with a hooked thumb. “We’re not laughing at your expense, John. It was just Captain Fitzjames saying, ‘If he ate something spoilt, you must all be careful’ and that Goodsir chap over on Erebus trekking all the way here with a can that had gone bad and waving it at Captain Crozier, back and forth like this, over and over again, ‘Was it this kind Lieutenant Irving ate, was it this kind, was it this kind, was it-’”

            “‘ _-this kind?’”_ Hodgson and Little are nearly doubled over and Irving lifts his shoulders up in an effort to appear more mirthful. He lays them back against the infirmary bed after his sore stomach muscles twinge and he winces with an, “Ugh.”

            Dr. Peddie feels Irving’s forehead. “No fever, still. One bad meal, probably. You’ll only need to stay one night. You’ll need to rest, though.” He smiles at Hodgson and Little who roll their eyes but clasp hands with Irving in turn.

As they leave, they nearly knock into the tray William Gibson is carrying, but Gibson, from years of practice of holding trays steady on ships probably, doesn’t sway as he lowers the food on the table Dr. Peddie gestures to. Irving watches Gibson closely. He moves smoothly, almost fluidly, in his motions. His eyelashes lay a soft shadow on his face as he gazes downwards as Dr. Peddie thanks him and then waves him away.

Gibson’s eyes meet very briefly with Irving’s. “I hope you’re well again very soon, Lieutenant.” He bows his head and his solemn aura, those first winter snow drifts, first fallen autumn leaves, first drops of rain in the storm, leaves with him out the door. The poor boy. Did he ever retch after Hickey touched him?

Irving’s stomach rolls and his vision is first too blurry, then too sharp, and Dr. Peddie sits him up in time for him to reach the bucket and then visiting hours are over and the lights are turned off.

***

            It’s the fact that he doesn’t dream of Sir John that makes this night the worst of his life. He’s alone.

***

            Fitzjames scratches words into a ledger and speaks without looking at Irving. “This is an official visit, Lieutenant Irving. You are here at my table because I invited you in order to inquire into your health, as I was the only man with you when you were first ill. This is my duty.”

            “Yes, sir.” Irving looks at his lap and his voice is higher and reedier than usual. His temples are throbbing as if tiny drummers are hitting them with sticks. He may not be certain that he is in God’s grace, but this man might be willing to wear the mark of Cain. Irving would have rights to write him up if he were a Captain. Possibly have him whipped. How’s that for an unlikely event? A queer has a captain lashed for heresy.

            Thinking of himself as “a queer” puts a nasty heat in his stomach and he wonders which of them truly has the high moral and doctrinal ground in this situation.

            “Then that’s over with. Good.” Fitzjames blows on the ink, rises, walks around the table and takes the seat next to Irving’s. “We can begin properly now.”

            But Fitzjames says nothing, still hasn’t looked at Irving, who feels the throbbing move from his temples to the back of his head. Not far from the spot Fitzjames had grasped it the day before. The moral high ground from which he’d thought he could look smugly down at Fitzjames from has regressed to an uncomfortable lump of ground, barren, shadowed by shame. Irving tries to wrench his eyes up, to sit straight and take whatever else it is Fitzjames has to say to him like a man. He moves his eyes a fraction from Fitzjames’s boots to Fitzjames’s hands in his lap and the effort sends a new jag of pain zig-zagging through the back of his head. No school exam he ever sat for, no training with superiors who pounded him into the ground before building him back up, indeed no chancing glance at a handsome lad in the street ever had his nerves combusting as fast as in this moment.

            He’s a Royal Marine. He’s a lieutenant on board a ship for an expedition that will become one of the most legendary and prestigious of all time. He has had every reason to hold his head up high.

            Sir John hand-picked him for this journey. Whatever the coming battle, Irving has this in his arsenal.

            Fitzjames flicks his eyes up to Irving. The lines on the sides of his face are more pronounced than usual and he looks as though he did a slapdash effort at combing his hair. Waves settle against his cheeks, under the blue halfmoons beneath his eyes. He sighs. “I have almost always been able to read my lieutenants like books, Mr. Irving. Yesterday was the first occasion I can remember when I not only slipped up but incriminated myself to a lower officer. As you have also incriminated yourself to a higher one. Are we equals, then?” There’s no superiority in his voice. If there’s anything, there’s exhaustion mantling every word.

            The cross currents of certainty and disturbance in Irving wobble and fall to a heap. His disgust with Fitzjames is tempered like steel, Fitzjames plunging him into the water of guilt, the worst baptism. How are they possibly equals, and yet who can tally more sins than the two of them together right now?

            Irving closes his eyes. The first question on the test, the first shouted command, the first lovely boy to smile at him. Never as confusing or as terrifying as this. He can’t bear to see Fitzjames, see the world, as he whispers, “I cannot speak to the equality of a non-believer and a queer, sir.” He wants to die.

            “Well I can.” The words are uneven, Fitzjames’s usual drawl off-kilter. “You see Mr. Irving, my crisis is new. As I looked down the hole cut in the ice where Sir John’s mortal remains will rest for eternity, I brought my hand down on the ice and I half-screamed. Not unlike your screams of yesterday. With that scream, I felt not only the candle of God in my heart extinguished, but broken into so many pieces, and I don’t know if damage like that can be repaired. All my life I would have affirmed that it could be. Before I went to sea at twelve years old, I essentially lived in the church, so often did my family bring me. They positioned my hands into the correct posture of prayer, did this again and again so that it began to feel more natural to hold them in prayer than to hold them by my sides. Although not a man of the church, I am its son if ever there was one. God was both of my parents to me. I feel that a flame of God could be re-lit inside me. But a broken candle must be replaced entirely, and I no longer have room in my soul for something shaped like a candle, like a faith of any kind. That space inside me has shrunk. I had hoped that you could open it again, but now from what I gather, you are spending energy coping with a different internal pain and I would not ask you to work on my soul as well. So we are equals in our suffering.”

            Irving balls his fists but the anger he feels he should keep burning inside him for an ungodly man in his presence flakes apart the longer he sits in silence. Fitzjames can be punished only by God. Irving can be punished by God and men. Yet Fitzjames has gone off on some personal tangent that Irving can do nothing about.

            “Captain.” He tries to build his voice into that of a man who knows exactly what he’s about and just how to go about expressing it. “I cannot save your soul. I don’t know why you’d ask me. If you don’t worship God again, you are damned.”

            One of the corners of Fitzjames’s mouth twitches and he moves back in his chair, as if Irving has suddenly invaded his space. “And are you yourself damned, Mr. Irving?”

            Irving feels a shudder down his spine. “That is for God alone to know. I am not…I have not acted on impure thoughts. Not even once. I pray every day to God that I may be shown mercy, now and at the end. Nothing is more important than worshiping God. Nothing.”

            Fitzjames raises his eyes to the ceiling, as if he can briefly confer with God about this notion of His superiority above all things.

Clearly Fitzjames finds any answer he receives lacking. He lowers his eyes and continues to sit rigidly away from Irving. “If you are above me in matters of faith, you are below me in station and it’s my word against yours and I will always win. Is this an appealing situation to you?”

            Suddenly, Irving can see the knots of the cat being tied as surely as he can see Fitzjames in front of him. His eyes plunge to the floor. Shakily, the words breaking in his voice, Irving asks, “Are you going to have me lashed, Captain?”

            Finally, Fitzjames relaxes his body and sits normally again. He drums his fingers on the table before covering his eyes with his hand. When he takes it away, he looks ready to lie down and not get up for a very long time.

“No, I will not have you lashed. Because, Mr. Irving, I don’t find either of our situations appealing. So no, you will not be lashed as long as I have the power to prevent it.”

            Irving recoils, the burning in his stomach flaring. “Why not?”

            “You’ve committed no crime.”

            “I’ve trespassed against the Lord.”

            “Well, take that up with Him, not me.”

            “There is nothing to take up. I deserve the cat.”

            “Then go find it and whip yourself silly, I don’t care.”

            “You should care, you’re my superior, it’s your job to judge me!”

            “Mr. Irving, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you _craved_ the lash. Do you?”

            “I need to begin craving what I deserve. It is the only way I can atone from now on.”

            “You lack logic.”

            “You lack faith.” Irving’s insides churn at the words he cannot take back.

            Fitzjames only waves a hand. “Indeed, but unlike God, I have the final say-so as to whether you should be whipped and I see no infraction.”

            “No infraction? I’ve committed one. I _am_ one. I’m an abomination. I’m a son of Sodom. Being turned into salt would be too good a punishment for me-”

            Fitzjames slams his fist on the table with enough force to make his ledger and inkwell bounce. “ENOUGH of this _nonsense_ before I tear my ears off!” Flint sparks off his eyes and into Irving’s. “I am not having you lashed and I won’t have you speaking of yourself in that way either. I might be a fallen man but you are risen in a way I’ll never be and I will not have you mentally scarring yourself any more than you already have. From what I gather you have damaged yourself willingly and I may not be your father, your guardian, but I am your _captain_ and I tell you to _stop_.”

            The man is out of his mind. It would be really quite sad, if Irving weren’t so confused and shaken. Irving moves his head from side to side wildly. “I don’t fathom you. I will never be risen. I’m sorry sir but you have truly lost your way if you think I am risen above so much as a flea. It would be so much easier, sir, if you would accuse me, lash me, and be done with this matter.”

            Fitzjames grits his teeth, hisses, runs a hand through hair so hard and fast that it swings. “If I’d read my Bible today, none of it would square with who you are, Mr. Irving.”

            “But you _knew_ the Bible once! You likely know it still!” Irving fidgets his hands in his lap compulsively, pointing at nothing in particular. “You don’t need to be a heretic, an apostate, whatever it is you will call yourself, to know I stand out of God’s light, closer to Satan’s instead! I am unsavable, I can only pray that God takes pity on me and I’m not sent to an even lower level of Hell than I deserve for the crimes I’ve committed!”

            “What _crimes_ have you committed! What have you _done_? You loved Sir John, that is all I know!”

            Irving nearly wails, hands trembling in front of him. “I loved him not like a father as I should have.”

            “You wanted to be lovers with him.”

            His heart kicks in time with the roiling burn in his stomach. “No, I never wanted such a thing.”

            “You did not?”

            “No. Not ever.”

            “But you loved him. You were _in_ love with him.”

            “But I never acted on it. Not once, I never would have, I begged God again and again to forgive me my vices, I can only pray the circle of Hell I am sent to is-”

            “There is no Hell!”

            “Hell is where I will go! It’s the only place fit for me! You are a true heretic if you don’t believe that!”

            “If it exists then I will drag you out of it myself, but there will be no need, because you’re rising even as we speak.”

            Irving wants to yell _Shut up_ but even in this dark night of the soul, he knows better. “I don’t understand! How can I rise? I’m lowly, I’m so low-”

            “Are you?”

            “Yes!”

            “You swear to this?”

            “Yes!”

            “Then I tell you now. There is _no_ place in Hell for honest men.”

            “My honesty or secrecy has nothing to do with my soul.”

            “Oh Mr. Irving, it has everything to do with it.”

            “You can’t speak to me like this. You have no God.”

            “No, I have no God. But I have you. I have your heart. And now you shall have mine. You see, Mr. Irving, you don’t know what a merit your honesty is. You’ve sat here and readily admitted to being what you what call a queer, a Sodomite, a base, lowly thing that’s hardly even human. Have I, until now, knowing what you are, confided in you that I am the same kind of queer as you? You are brave, Mr. Irving. You don’t know how much.”

            Irving feels as though the entire ocean has been hurled at him with hurricane force. The burning inside him stops and the calm that descends after being emotionally spent, when the sea finally rocks at its usual rhythm, threads itself through his veins.

            _He’s a queer too._

 _I’m brave_.

            He flicks his eyes up from the floor and rests them on Fitzjames’s. The cast of exhaustion on Fitzjames’s face hasn’t lifted but there’s a curious raising of one of his eyebrows. His eyes are bold for a man who’s just admitted to unnatural vices. When he speaks, some of his usual drawl rolls back into his voice.

            “Mr. Irving. Would you like to whip me yourself?”

***

            Irving shifts his chin in his hand and keeps his eyes closed. “No, no one gave me a talk about it. Probably no one dreamed it was something that would ever be an issue with me. I was a good lad. Motivated. Top marks in school. I had a group of upstanding, god-fearing friends about me. I never strayed far from home or school. Maybe that’s why there was no fear my soul would ever go amiss. Be led astray to this particular sin.”

            “How old were you, when you knew?”

            “Fifteen. I had tea with a girl and her mother across the street every weekend. My mother was hoping I’d form an attachment to her, I know she was. This girl had a brother, several years older, who would come home from the club with his friends and sit in the library while I sat in the parlor. This was the only time of day I saw him. It didn’t take me long to realize that I yearned to be having tea just to see him for less than a minute every week. It shook me, that feeling. I couldn’t push it down. I couldn’t pretend it was a passing fancy. And then I went to the Academy and there were so many, _too_ many good-looking boys. I was drowning in them. Begging, begging, begging God to forgive me, promising Him that nothing would ever, ever come of any attraction.”

            “And nothing did?” Fitzjames shifts in his chair, then shifts the other way, then back to the original way.

            “No. I staked the future of my soul on my abstinence from this horrific vice. I threw myself into every other aspect of life. I was even set to marry the girl across the street when my first offer to go to sea arrived and her parents decided that she was not to be a Marine’s wife after all.”

            “Did you feel any attraction to her?”

            “None.”

            “But you would have done your so-called duty? Been a husband to her when on land, fathered children with her?”

            Irving pinches the bridge of his nose and crinkles his mouth before he can help it. “Heaven help me. Yes. If it kept me in the grace of God.” He finally opens his eyes.

             Fitzjames tilts his head back, looking at the ceiling again, frowning. “Then you’d have lashed yourself anyway, all through your life.” He’s fiddling with one of his hands, stroking his own palm, his own fingers, the most nervous gesture Irving has ever seen him make. “But I cannot fault you. I’d have done the same if I’d felt like I needed to make any effort to court a woman and be a husband.”

            Irving frowns this time. “Why didn’t you feel that need?”

            Fitzjames chuckles drily, turning in his chair to better face Irving. “Because I knew too many handsome boys to feel any shame when I felt so much pleasure.”

            Irving swallows a whimper, unwanted images blasting against his mind’s eye, naked bodies, _men’s_ naked bodies. He asks the question even though he knows the answer. “When you say you knew them…”

            “Yes. I mean in the Biblical sense.” Fitzjames stops fidgeting with his hands and pushes his hair behind his ears. His smile is soft but there’s light in it. “I found out about the same age as you. Unlike you though, I followed my desires and, despite growing up in the Church, I couldn’t accept the idea that my greatest happiness would not be approved of by a loving God.” His smiles fades and his eyes narrow sadly as he licks his lips. “That’s why I want Him back. I want to know there’s a power that loves my happiness as much as I do, since I cannot share it with an earthly being.”

            Irving spreads his hands out. “You make no sense. We are doomed because of our desires, and yet you think God approves of you? The Bible says we are doomed. It’s laid out clearly.”

            “So it is. But it’s a book. God is not a book.”

            Irving jerks his hands back and shakes his head violently. “God used man to write the Bible. It all comes from God.”

            “I am too happy in my desires for a book to lock them up.” Fitzjames turns in his chair so that his kneecaps are nearly flush with Irving’s. “Listen to me, Mr. Irving. I love God. I miss Him. But you will not help me return to Him by denying my happiness, just as I believe you will never reach happiness if you don’t let yourself experience the blessings you want. Think on this, will you?” He looks over his shoulder at the half-dark, half-glowing sky in the window. “It’s getting late. I have to meet Captain Crozier tomorrow anyway. I’ll visit you. We can talk more. Or, if you like, we can speak no more about it. That can be that.” He swings his crossed legs apart as if to rise.

            Irving doesn’t move. His mind feels like a hive that bees are trying to enter but are knocking against and can’t penetrate. There are so many thoughts he should be registering: Fitzjames loves men like Irving does, Fitzjames has acted on his desires, and Fitzjames still seeks God. It’s nonsensical, farcical.

            It’s really quite beautiful.

            “I don’t want to go yet.” The words leave his lips before he remembers deciding to speak them. When Fitzjames meets his eyes, Irving says, “You said I had risen high. I don’t know if that’s true. But I want it to be. I’m so tired. I’ve been tired since I first knew myself. But if there’s any way I can be in God’s favor…I am so, _so_ terrified all of the time…” He wobbles out the last few words and doesn’t struggle when Fitzjames gently picks one of his hands up, finally unbandaged by Dr. Peddie this morning.

            “I’ve never been more terrified than I am now,” Fitzjames says softly, no drawl in his voice. He touches Irving’s fingertips with his own. “Will God judge me for this?” He nods at their held hands.

            Irving sniffs a small laugh. “Who am I to say anymore?”

            Fitzjames smiles and lets Irving’s hand go, but Irving takes Fitzjames’s hand back and kisses his knuckles.

            _God, I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I wanted to not want my wants_ , he thinks as he turns Fitzjames’s hand over and kisses his palm. _I love You, but his skin feels so, so good. If I’m judged, I must accept that. Right now I need to break with my covenant. I need to break. It’s the only way I’ll feel whole._

            Fitzjames takes Irving’s other hand and gently kisses each finger. They shift closer to each other, adoring each other’s hands, lips pressed on the backs and up the wrists. Fitzjames pulls their hands apart suddenly. “Do you want this?”

            Irving’s breath comes in skips at first but he can still feel, almost tangibly, how James Fitzjames touched the blood of his heart and smeared his truth, not the gospel but his own truth, over Irving’s eyelids. What would that truth feel like all over his body? What would it feel like to put his hands on the body of a man who has no fear of his fate, who would rather sculpt his desire into a living thing with another man rather than die without knowing ecstasy from another man?

            If this is jumping overboard in order to rise, then Irving is ready to spread his wings.

            Irving nods. “I want you. I want the truth.”

***

            Sinking back onto Fitzjames’s bed is better than lying back in a field of lilies that doesn’t exist.

            They haven’t discarded their clothes yet but they don’t need to in order to begin piecing together the beautiful picture. Irving holds Fitzjames’s hands close to his mouth, still kissing them as Fitzjames lies next to him and brings his lips to Irving’s cheek. Fitzjames only lit one lamp but Irving feels as though they could be in broad daylight and he’d still want this just as badly.

            Fitzjames’s kiss is gentle at first, just his closed mouth touching against Irving’s cheek. Then he kisses him with open lips and since Irving has never truly imagined what a kiss outside a dream might feel like, he moans and almost cries in gratitude. He lets go of Fitzjames’s hands and places his own on Fitzjames’s cheeks. He leans his head up from the pillow. He doesn’t wait to be kissed. He kisses Fitzjames first.

            The first kiss of his life lasts what feels longer than a lifetime. Fitzjames keeps his lips on Irving’s, opening and closing his mouth, pressing, running the tip of his tongue across the top line of Irving’s teeth, then touching their tongue-tips together. It’s the lesson Irving has been waiting for more than twenty years, how mouths fit together, how two _men’s_ mouths create sparks that could set fire to the world.

            Fitzjames moves his body to lie fully on Irving’s and Irving brushes his fingers through Fitzjames’s hair again and again. He holds Fitzjames’s head as Fitzjames buries his face in Irving’s neck, the skin of Irving’s neck under his kisses like the tenderest bud on a tree full of blooms.

            It’s not the first time Irving has been hard. He’s woken up from many a dream about Sir John and having to hold his face in a bowl of cold water to calm down. But it’s the first time he’s relished this hardness, surrendered to it. He’s sure Fitzjames can feel it through his trousers but Fitzjames doesn’t touch him there yet, is kissing his way across Irving’s collarbones, hands flat on his shoulders. Irving aches everywhere, his cock, all his skin, his blood, maybe even his bones. He bends his legs up to cradle Fitzjames between his hips. Fitzjames laughs softly into the hollow of Irving’s throat and lifts his head up.

            “I think you want to go fast.”

            “No, no.”

            “It’s alright. First times are so seldom what you hoped they’d be. If I can make yours what you want then I’ll have done well by you. We can go slowly later.”

            Irving tries to speak but only manages a hum and then a deep exhalation as Fitzjames smooths his hand down Irving’s body.

            It’s an interesting word, “fuck.” Irving knows it of course, you can’t spend two seconds around any kind of petty sailors and not hear it, but he’s never thought it concretely. But _He’s fucking me through my clothes_ is, he thinks, not a bad way to break the word into his vocabulary. Fitzjames strokes Irving’s cock through his trousers, his other hand brushing lightly between Irving’s neck and shoulders. The pleasure is so keen and concentrated and, by God, yes, _by God_ it’s the most thrilled his body has ever felt. Irving doesn’t know how long he can take it before he comes.

            It’s as if Fitzjames has an instinct about this. Which makes sense, since he’s been with other men. He takes his hand away and presses his thumb to Irving’s hipbone instead, cooling Irving down slightly but not enough to keep the pleasure from continuing to pool. Fitzjames licks his lips and moves to whisper in Irving’s ear.

            “How free do you feel?”

            Irving breathes for a moment. He knows that after this is all over he’ll never be the same. And, despite all the fear he’s slathered onto bricks to build around himself all his life in the name of God, that’s a comfort.

            “Like I should have done this sooner.”

            Fitzjames smiles into his skin. “It’s like nothing else, is it?”

            No, no it’s not but Irving doesn’t speak it because Fitzjames has finally pushed his fingers under Irving’s waistband and laid one fingertip on his cock. Irving breathes and pants and moans in a language not of words but of one he knows Fitzjames speaks as well. One fingertip up and down his length becomes two, then three, then Fitzjames’s loose fist around him. Irving thinks he could die and the pleasure would follow him into the afterlife and still feel as potent.

            He did want to go fast, and it ends fast. Fitzjames has barely started pumping him before all of Irving’s resolve buckles under the weight of perfect sensation and he comes, the back of his head dug into the pillow. He hasn’t realized how wide his mouth is open until Fitzjames opens his just as wide and kisses Irving that way all through the afterglow, hand still around his cock, the lantern light lowering and brightening, Irving’s vision out of focus and the fuzzy shapes he sees float before him full of glory.

***

            Irving unbuttons Fitzjames’s shirt and pulls it off, accidentally rumpling his hair, which Irving can’t help but automatically fix, as he’d do with his own. Fitzjames snorts but it’s not an unkind sound.

            “This is allowed to be a very, very messy game.”

            “I know. I mean, I don’t know, but that makes sense. But your hair is beautiful.” An earthquake tremor shakes his heart and his mind as he realizes what he’s said. He’s not actually told Fitzjames yet that he’s an attractive man, that it’s lovely to be doing this with a man so handsome.

            Fitzjames bites the side of his lip and smiles ruefully. “I’m not Sir John.”

            Irving, to his shock, doesn’t mind, and says so.

            “Well in that case then.” Fitzjames lies back on the bed, shirtless, his body warm shades of red and gold from the lantern light. “What would you like to do to me?”

***

            Irving has had enough fucking through clothes. When he sucks Fitzjames, it’s with both of their trousers lying somewhere in a heap.

            The fact that he has no idea what he’s doing seems to excite Fitzjames. “What should I do? What do you like?” Irving had asked.

            “Everything,” had been the tantalizing answer.

            So licking from his shaft to tip and back, moving down and tonguing his balls, sucking on the head and tasting something strange but pleasant, then tonguing his entire cock, licking around the head, and sucking on his balls all seems to please Fitzjames equally. He keeps both hands on Irving’s head, sliding his fingers through his hair and pushing down whenever he gasps. Irving adores it, feels like he’s being given orders and rewarded when he does well.

            Fitzjames holds out far longer than Irving did, but when he comes, he lifts his hips so high in the air that Irving has to arch himself up to keep Fitzjames in his mouth. He’s not sure when he has ever felt so pleased with himself before as he swallows and Fitzjames covers his forehead with one hand, heaving, grinning.

            “I did well?” Irving smiles and licks his lips again.

            Fitzjames’s laughter is shaky but almost giddy. “First time was a charm.”

***

            They lay in silence for awhile, Irving’s head in the crook of Fitzjames’s neck, Fitzjames’s arms around him. The lantern is burning lower, not much brighter than a handful of smoldering coals. Now that they’ve gotten the immediate pleasure out of their systems, Irving feels something shift, a seriousness that will have to be addressed before they can move forward. Or before Irving realizes it’s time for him to leave.

            He thinks of all the things he could say: _So you enjoyed this? How much? Enough to remember your faith in pleasure? Did I somehow bring you back to God? Is your soul as fulfilled as your body is now?_

            “Have I reached grace?” is what comes out.

            Fitzjames traces a finger up and down Irving’s arm. “I don’t know that I can answer that for you.”

            “If you were God, would you bless me right now?”

            Fitzjames laughs, then laughs again. “‘If I were God.’ I’d have made a different world if I were God.”

            “One where I’d never have believed my soul to be cursed?”

            “And one where you could have me to worship too.”

            “You?”

            “God. Me as God.”

            “Oh.”

            “What? What’s ‘Oh’?”

            Irving breathes in Fitzjames. He’s been smelling men’s sweat all his life, in crammed school hallways and even more crammed ships. But he’s never enjoyed it until now. He thinks he could rub Fitzjames’s sweat on himself and be perfectly happy continuing to live with it that way. There’s been something about Fitzjames in this past hour, something about him that’s hooked into some part of Irving’s spirit, a strong hook, sharp as any but enjoyable. As if he’s stepped on a seashell and cut his foot, but the seashell was beautiful so it was worth the ache. It’s utterly foreign. Since when is pain supposed to feel good? But the idea of leaving Fitzjames, his bed, his cabin, _Erebus,_ puts another hook in his heart, a rusty, impure one that’s like stepping on an ugly spike of a rock and ruing it every moment he bleeds. And if that hook is impure, then the first one has a purity, despite its unfamiliarity and the disturbance it’s caused in his soul.

            As he gently rolls his head away to look at Fitzjames and Fitzjames turns his head to regard him in turn, Irving swallows and feels the hook in his heart twist, but it feels like a gentle patch of sunlight suddenly sharpening because a long bank of clouds has finally scudded past it.

            “I think I like you very much,” he whispers. “Not you as God. But you as _you_.” He threads his fingers through Fitzjames’s. “I don’t know what God is thinking, looking at me now.” He swallows and inhales. “But nothing I’ve ever been taught in my life before has made as much sense as being with you. I know I don’t even know you that well. But I hope I will. I want to do more than this.” He gestures at their naked bodies. “I want to talk more with you. When we’re back in England, I want to visit you. I want to have meals with you. Walk with you through a park. Sit on a bench together. I don’t know, all of it, everything people who are close to each other do.”

            Fitzjames says nothing. Irving feels panic flutter at the top of his heart and make its way downwards to the bottom. Then Fitzjames says, “You’re the most fascinating person I’ve ever known, do you know that? An hour ago you were willing to be flayed for unforgivable sins and now you’ve just been with your first man and you’re telling me you want to keep seeing me. Do I have that right?”

            The panic still thrums. “Yes.”

            Fitzjames leans down and puts his hand over Irving’s heart. He cringes and frowns apologetically. “It’s beating too fast, too anxiously. I did that. I’m sorry. I’m only still in shock myself. I’ve been thinking how wonderful God is. I’ve been thinking about how cruel men have made Him. I’ve been thinking that I wish you were here with me on _Erebus._ Thinking that if I’d known you on land I’ve have asked you to marry me.”

            Irving sputters out a laugh. “Marry you? How in God’s name…?” But he falls silent as Fitzjames says nothing more, only shifts Irving in his arms to hold him tighter.

            “There. How ungodly. Have I really strayed too far, this time?”

            The idea is absurd, yet something gorgeous in its nonsensicality, its whimsy, its pure fantasy. Pure.

“I don’t know how we could be married under God. But…do you know how I keep thinking of you?”

“A lost sheep?”

Irving breathes a laugh. “Alright. Maybe lost beyond being found. But if you weren’t found by God, you’ve been found by me. Pure. You’re pure. Sinful, just as I am. But pure in your sin.”

Fitzjames crinkles his face and shakes his head. “Sin as something pure. How on earth do you suss that one out?”

“I’m not sure I even know.” Irving tentatively touches Fitzjames’s chest, under his throats hollow. “It makes no sense, I know. But what doesn’t make sense is making the most sense to me right now.” He runs his finger down to Fitzjames’s waist. “I want to know more sense like this. Let’s marry.” He leans up and out of Fitzjames’s arms. “Yes. Let’s do it. Sinners. Purity in sin. We built this together.”

Fitzjames leans back on his arms and considers Irving. One side of his hair is rumpled again and Irving can’t contain himself and reaches for it but Fitzjames takes his wrist first.

“Married.” He kisses Irving’s jaw. “How sinful can we make our wedding night?”

***

            “You just happen to have this on hand?”

            “It works remarkably well with your own body as well as with another man’s.” Fitzjames screws the bottle shut and brushes the oil from his fingers onto Irving’s hand. “Would you like to do the honor?”

            Irving remembers how, when he was a child, his mother would permit him to run in the park, as long as he didn’t go out of her sight and, more importantly, no one they knew were around to see his childish behavior. The rush of blood to his head as he clomped his feet violently forward, kicking up grass and dirt, was the most ecstatic physical sensation he’d felt until tonight. He thinks of the twenty or so years that have passed since this joy. On a different night, he would have regretted them.

But regrets are useless and irrelevant as he slicks Fitzjames’s cock and then shudders in joy as Fitzjames slicks his opening in turn. Irving’s heart beats like he’s running, but he’s running far out of view of anyone else but the man touching him, running out of the park and along a path that’s forged of honesty and the sweet smell of sweat and fucking.

“Sometimes it’s good to talk while we do this,” Fitzjames says as he places his warm fingertips on Irving’s hips. “So talk to me, tell me what you need, what feels good, what doesn’t. The one way I’ll be truly damned is if I hurt you.”

Irving raises himself from his hands and knees briefly to kiss Fitzjames, long, deep, tongues touching. “I told you I wanted to talk to you more, didn’t I?”

Fitzjames licks his tongue over Irving’s lips and presses their foreheads together. “They say communication is a healthy part of marriage.”

As Irving lays back down on his hands and knees and Fitzjames presses one finger gently into him, he thinks vaguely how he had wanted to sink on his knees just a few days ago to pray for Sir John’s soul. He’d been discouraged growing up from sudden shows of piety by kneeling abruptly. He wants to laugh as he looks down at his knees now, indenting into the soft blankets, almost invisible in the darkness from the near spent lantern. All the memories from childhood, rushing through the park, keeping his knees straight, praising God with every breath. They don’t feel like they belong to another lifetime, to another person. He’s ready, finally.

He’s ready to own that he acted conventionally once, and now he is not, and he is pure anyway.

“Is that good?” Fitzjames has two fingers crooked inside Irving now, wiggling them around and up. Irving’s hands nearly slide out from under him as pleasures flows wildly through his veins from some wondrous spot Fitzjames has touched.

Without thinking, because lifetime habits don’t disappear overnight or after one fucking, he gasps, “Oh God, yes.”

Fitzjames traces his other fingers slowly down Irving’s back and then pauses. “If God is still-”

“No.” Irving whispers. “I just…well, I do still wonder. I don’t know if God sees me.”

“I don’t either.” Fitzjames slides his fingers out and leans his chest on Irving’s back. “But I can see you. I can see you just fine.”

Irving moves his hips back. “If He doesn’t want to see me, then I’ll be in the dark with you. Happily.”

God enters the conversation a few more times, however, after Fitzjames has lined himself up and pushed gently into Irving, pulled out, and worked his way gently in until he’s buried to the hilt inside Irving and, “God, god, god, _fuck_ ” slips out of Irving’s mouth. Fitzjames almost ends it before it’s begun but Irving tells him firmly to push himself back in, that he has an idea, something to purify them both even further.

So the first time Fitzjames thrusts into Irving, he slaps Irving’s back. A lash. Perfect. He thrusts again and slaps harder and Irving grits his teeth and moans raggedly, hungry for the next thrust and the next blow.

“Harder.”

“Are you sure?” Fitzjames holds Irving’s hip with one hand and Irving can feel his other hand raised above Irving’s back.

“Yes. Fuck me. Lash me. Tell me to sin harder. Purer.”

So Fitzjames does as he’s told, slapping and bucking into Irving and this is it, this is what Irving has been waiting for, to be cleansed through the godly ritual of scourging and purified through another man’s body. It’s completely dark now and he’s eager to turn the lamp up when this is over and see the red handprints on his back but he never wants this to be over, or maybe since that’s impossible, he wants it every day. He realizes how in love he is with the idea of marriage to another man, how it’s very possible he’s falling in love with Fitzjames, how this is how he wants to fall to his knees every night.

They move at a slower pace so that neither of them comes too soon. “Hit my shoulders,” Irving breathes. “As if I were lashing myself. I’d hit my shoulders as well as my back. Hit them hard.”

“Is this hard enough?” Fitzjames brings his hand down and the slap is almost loud enough to echo.

Irving nearly buckles on his knees and hisses in pleasure. “Yes. Again. Then again.”

“Bossy, aren’t you?” Fitzjames slams his hand down. “And to think I was your superior once.” He rides himself into Irving with slightly more speed.

Irving nearly turns his head. “What do you mean, ‘once’?”

“Well. I think I can safely say I have a manmade rank above you, but-” He pumps in and out of Irving and brings the side of his hand down on Irving’s shoulder. “-I think if we’re married, we’re equals, aren’t we? You only have to call me ‘captain’ and ‘sir’ in front of the men. When we’re alone-” In and out, _slap_. “-I think you should just call me ‘James.’”

Irving bucks himself back. “I can do that.”

“I think you can do a lot of things.”

“I know I can.”

“How?”

“I swallowed you earlier, didn’t I?”

Fitzjames laughs suddenly and then groans. “I’m close. Are you?”

“You can make me closer. Hit me harder. As hard as you can.”

“And if I break one of your bones? I’m trying to keep you out of the infirmary from now on, you know.”

Irving chuckles and sighs as Fitzjames hits the perfect spot inside him again. “You won’t break my back. Hit me on my arse.”

Fitzjames laughs aloud and slows for a moment. “Such language. I could write you up for it.”

“That’s not what a good husband does.”

“Indeed. Well since I’m trying to give you the fucking of your life, I’m sworn to obey. Tell me when.”

“Put both hands on me until then.”

Fitzjames grabs Irving by both hips and rocks in and out at a pace Irving didn’t know was possible. The spot is touched more rapidly than before until it feels like Fitzjames’s cock is never off it. Irving hears Fitzjames throw his head back by the sound of his hair swishing and he tries to imagine Fitzjames’s closed eyes, open mouth. Irving wishes he could see the two of them, from the air maybe. Is it possible they can do this face to face, Fitzjames inside him with Irving on his back?

Another time. The tingling is mounting and if Irving were praying he knows he’d be shouting some form of _Hallelujah, fuck, fuck hallelujah, oh fuck oh fuck hallelujah fuck, fuck, fuck oh fuck_ but he’d rather hear the sounds that his voice makes naturally. So he gasps _Now_ and Fitzjames slaps his arse and gives a few more hard bucks into him and that’s all it takes for Irving to come even harder than before, that one last slap, that one last touch inside, hands and cock and fuck, yes, this is the truth he wanted.

***

            Irving has never hugged another man before. Not like this. Men who are old friends sometimes sling one arm around another and clap each other furiously on the back before separating. This hug isn’t really like a hug. It’s really like being held.

            Dressed and standing by the cabin doorway, Fitzjames holds Irving against his chest, running one hand up and down his back and gently teasing his hair with the other. Irving’s face is buried in Fitzjames’s coat. He can still smell his sweat, despite how long they took wiping each other down with damp cloths, occasionally splashing each other on purpose. He breathes it in as hard as he can.

            “I don’t mind walking back with you.”

            “No.” Irving reluctantly moves his face back from Fitzjames. “I came here alone. I have to leave the same way.”

            Fitzjames bites his lip and blinks in thought. “I’ll draw up a schedule. Dates where I’ll need you to walk here and give me reports on certain matters.”

            Irving snorts softly and Fitzjames wraps him up again. They were supposed to part ten minutes ago as the darkness is beginning to show the stars and the shimmery band of gleaming light. But still they stand together, holding each other.

            “James?” Irving ventures. The name is new on his tongue and still strange but he’s looking forward to becoming used to it.

            “Yes?”

            “Did…did you find God again? Tonight? Whatever God means to you?”

            Fitzjames rubs their cheeks together. “I found the faith that I needed, yes. I found you. I didn’t take you to bed just because I wanted a man. I asked for you because you belong under a blue sky and not this forsaken dark place and if I could lay you in the sun and make love to you gently or fuck you hard, whatever you want, I would. Any piece of that I can give you here and now, I will. I’ve been searching for sincerity my whole life, you know. I don’t always know it when I see it. I rarely act upon it myself. You don’t climb ladders very high by being sincere. But look at you. All the words you’d dammed up. Your broke the dam for me. I’m the lucky one. I sit in silence frequently. No one knows how frequently because of how much I speak when I’m around others. But I sit alone and think how I wish I knew God’s plan for me. I’m not here for a lark. I mean in this life, it’s not a tra-la-la for me. I hurt inside, and I don’t speak of it. You spoke. You spoke to me. I spoke back. I feel I’ve cleared a rocky ford. The ground has never been safer underneath me.” He kisses Irving’s temple. “And you? Do you still have God?”

            _Safe._ Irving’s throat swells and he’s silent for a moment while Fitzjames continues to lean against his temple.

Finally Irving nods. “I always will have God. My fear…if it’s not gone forever, I probably won’t know until later, but if it’s not gone, then I will bear it because I want this. I want you.”

            “Do you still want to be married? Whatever on earth that does mean for us?”

            “Yes. I’ll write you a vow and bring it next time you call for me.”

            He can feel Fitzjames smile into his hair. “I’ll do the same. We _are_ falling in love, aren’t we?”

            Irving jolts his chin back slightly, but then smiles. “You knew I was thinking that.”

            “I guessed.”

            “You have a hook in my heart.”

            “You wrote on mine.”

            “I wrote? Is that how it feels to you? What did I write?”

            Fitzjames kisses a line up Irving’s jaw and onto his cheek and then against his lips. “You wrote, ‘This is our own paradise.’”

***

            In the morning, when Irving has climbed down the ladder to speak to Mr. Diggle about Goodsir’s insistent harping on the tins, he finds Cornelius Hickey waiting at the bottom, caulker’s equipment in hand.

            Hickey bobs a bow with his head. “Lieutenant.” He doesn’t look at Irving but from the obviously forced firmness of his mouth, Irving knows that Hickey will probably break his posture and give him the bird once Irving’s back is turned.

            What had Irving thought of Hickey as before? “Blighted fruit”? How harsh he was a few days ago, to attach it to a man who made it plain he enjoys fucking other men. Instead of nodding and suffering the inevitable flipping off, Irving stands and faces Hickey for a moment instead.

            “Mr. Hickey. How godly would you say you are since we last spoke?”

            Hickey relaxes his lips, pulls them to one side, and raises his eyebrows. “Couldn’t tell you how much God deems me godly, sir, but I hope I do well enough to be looked down upon fondly.”

            Irving tilts his head. “Only ‘well enough’?”

            Hickey shrugs his head to one side, then the other. “I’m a Christian, sir. Wish I could explain myself better to you.”

            Irving nods distractedly. William Gibson is approaching across the hall, lunch tray in hand for some other lieutenant. He halts when he sees Irving and Hickey. His shoulders jerk back in a start. A spoon shifts from its proper place on the tray and clatters to the wooden deck.

            Hickey seems to know it’s Gibson behind him because he doesn’t break his gaze with Irving. Irving watches Gibson put the tray down to pick up the spoon, looking apologetically at Irving. Instead of going about his way, though, he stands still as a lamppost, but for his head, which he shakes ever so gently in Hickey’s direction.

            Irving has a strong sudden distaste for William Gibson that he won’t suss out later until he’s in bed with Fitzjames again. “That Hickey, though. He’s too smart for his own good,” Irving will say as he lies breathless next to Fitzjames on the bed. “He’ll get in trouble again someday, but he didn’t hide from me when I caught him. He had every chance to. And I still don’t like him, but he’s got a nerve that Gibson boy doesn’t have. It might be what will get him in trouble, actually. But I’d rather he get in trouble for it than to stay out of trouble with nothing to show for his life, I suppose.”

            Irving now tilts his chin at Gibson. _Dismissed._

            Gibson bows his head, eyes gloomy, and back the way he came.

Hickey has his hands behind his back now. “Was there something else I can do you for, Lieutenant? I do live to serve, you know that.”

“Yes, I know that.” Irving gives him a once-over before he leaves to collect a heavier coat for the trek across to _Erebus_ to be with Fitzjames. “You serve someone, Mr. Hickey. Probably yourself. You can’t be surprised that I know that. But at least I know it. You made it quite clear.” He shoots him a backwards glance before he turns the corner and is gone. “If you are ever caught lying about anything, you will face the Captains first, and then you will face me. You’ll explain yourself, and maybe, just maybe, if you tell me the truth then you’ll be free.” A pause. “That is, I’ll _let_ you go free. You can be sure of that.”


End file.
